STUDIOS

Ridgway

YOGA SHALA

by Claire Kiewatt

Shala, in Sanskrit, means home. As many of us feel disconnected right now, Ridgway Yoga Shala is a much needed home for anyone looking to reconnect and heal through community, nourishment and yoga.

Ridgway Yoga Shala is a healing space dedicated to curating “a conscious lifestyle of living yoga,” with a focus on their philosophy of Shala living. The Shala was founded by owner Katie Graves to serve as a sanctuary for its guests. Even though the current times call for many doors to remain closed, the spirit of Ridgway Yoga Shala remains open.

“It has been one year, two weeks and three days since we closed the doors at Ridgway Yoga Shala,” says Graves. “As yogis, we are taught the art of letting go; yet deep within us all, we knew that the space, in the heart of our small community, with its slanted floors, poor insulation and barred windows was worth fighting for.”

Ridgway Yoga Shala’s team is dedicated to keeping the studio and its community alive during these unique times. Members and guests alike can join the Shala in online classes, hosted via Zoom, as well as limited in-person classes in the Shala space. With courses ranging from gentle yoga and gentle flow to more specialized workshops that change with the seasons, the Shala has something to offer everyone who is looking to grow, practice, learn, and heal.

“Our aim is to re-open our doors to daily yoga classes starting in May. We will start slow and allow for guidance to be spoken from the teachers, students, community and from the deep inward listening. Holding space for our foundation is essential, but allowing the development of the new will be embraced,” shares Graves. “I do not hold all the answers for what is next for Ridgway Yoga Shala, as the greatest lesson we all have been given this past year is to evolve with change and live in the flow.”

Ridgway Yoga Shala’s efforts to sustain their community roots don’t stop at their classes. The studio has also opened its doors as a personal sanctuary for anyone interested in renting the space.

Personal and small groups can rent out the Shala community spaces to use for their spiritual or physical practices for just $10 an hour. Both the movement studio and office space are available, so renters can use the Shala for anything they need, whether that’s a meditation sanctuary, a work space, a place to run private lessons, host your own virtual courses, or even a nook to host a weekly book club. Regardless of what it’s used for, the Shala is a space for the Ridgway community to feel at home.

Graves longs for nothing more than to reopen the studio’s doors for good and bring a living energy back into the Shala, but acknowledges that the future of her yoga practice is ever-changing, and she has learned to let her practice transcend the physical.

“Pressing rewind and going back to the way things were is not an option. For the yoga teachers and studios that have survived, I believe our dharma is forever transformed. Our degrees of separation got infinitely smaller this past year,” she says. “We are so much more aware that we are all one. One with each other. One with our bodies. One with our communities. One with our neighbor. One with our planet. And one with the divine. I look forward to meeting you all here.”

Ridgway Yoga Shala is committed to creating a world in which ahimsa reigns and our ability to live in harmony with each other and the planet is exemplified through wisdom, acceptance, love, peace, compassion and inclusion. +

For more information about Ridgway Yoga Shala, their rental spaces, and current course offerings, visit

ridgwayyogashala.com.

CLAIRE KIEWATT is is a recent graduate from the University of Colorado Boulder and a former editorial intern for YOGA + Life and Spoke+Blossom magazines. Claire studied Media Production and Design and is passionate about art, storytelling and digital media.

Inner Peace Yoga Therapy

HEALING THROUGH YOGA

Afriend once told me to move through their trials and tribulations, they moved. No literally, they used movement and their active muscles to ease, and well, move, through their mental clutter. Movement, while not the answer for all, holds power for those who tend to ground themselves and slow their mind with a lively body.

Yogis have experienced this firsthand, coming out of practice with mental clarity and realization that there is nothing like it. While a regular practice can provide this for some, Michelle Lawerence of Inner Peace Yoga Therapy takes this healing power to the next level with her yoga therapy school.

“I am passionate about the healing power of yoga and bringing it to people,” Lawrence says. “By training yoga therapists, the reach just expands.”

Inner Peace Yoga Therapy is a school for yoga therapists that provides classes and courses to engage with the healing power of yoga for client empowerment and healing. Accredited through the International Association of Yoga Therapy, this school offers the tools and the 800-hour training required to utilize yoga practices, philosophies and skill-set credentials in a professional setting.

Lawrence, a yoga instructor since 2005, was drawn to the healing power of yoga since she began her practice.

“It made a difference in my life personally in terms of my physical and mental wellbeing. I wanted to understand why and how,” Lawerence explains. “There weren’t that many schools of yoga therapy 10 years ago; I wanted to create my own.”

Yoga therapists differ from yoga instructors in a few key ways. While yoga instructors create a general class catered towards most yogis, yoga therapists take a unique, personalized approach. In an initial session, a yoga therapist will conduct a one-on-one assessment and co-create, with the client, a therapy treatment program based on the individual’s goals, health challenges and unique set of circumstances.

“I started to learn more about how yoga works and how it helps in terms of healing and prevention towards various different conditions,” Lawerence says. “People have dramatic shifts and changes when you take that personalized approach and see the individual as a multifaceted human being, as more than their physical body.”

The Durango-based institution offers numerous courses, from their Level 1 Foundations in Yoga Therapy course to specialized workshops, in order to instruct yoga teach-

Olivia Lyda

ers to become yoga therapists. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, courses are offered fully online, with scaled-back class options, foreseeable until the end of 2021.

“When COVID-19 hit, we had to shift all of our training to virtual environments, it was difficult at first,” Lawrence adds. “Over the past year, we have evolved. Yoga therapy is very conducive to an online environment.”

“While yes, we plan to bring back in-person instruction, we likely will offer virtual options, as that choice has led to greater access for students who could not participate before because of location,”

Lawrence continues.

But, where Inner Peace Yoga Therapy differs from other yoga therapy schools is through their equity and access program, which offers scholarships and start-up campaigns for marginalized communities.

“Our start-up campaigns supply a grant to fund those efforts and have classes for aspiring yoga therapists to provide low or no-cost services in their communities that could not otherwise afford it,” Lawrence explains.

This inspiring school brings the power of healing through yoga to everyone who needs it. If you are interested in becoming a yoga therapist, look no further than Inner Peace Yoga Therapy.

Everyone practices healing in their own style. But moving through your illness, trauma or other adversities with yoga therapy sets an intention to move forward, through movement. +

innerpeaceyogatherapy.com

While yoga instructors create a general class catered towards most yogis, yoga therapists take a unique, personalized approach. In an initial session, a yoga therapist will conduct a one-onone assessment and co-create, with the client, a therapy treatment program based on the individual’s goals, health challenges and unique set of circumstances.

OLIVIA LYDA is a former editorial intern for Spoke+Blossom and YOGA + Life magazines. She is a recent graduate and studied communications, journalism and writing at the University of Colorado Boulder. Olivia is passionate about the Colorado lifestyle and works to convey this in her studies and publications.